Luck/Misfortune Nerf.

[HoneyBadger]

I think it has something to do with my poor choice of title. I just like using the word "nerf" is all

[Ewierl]

But losing that initial temple *is* a severe setback for many nations; if all your mages are sacred, and your Prophet is a few provinces away by turn 3, not only can't you recruit anyone to replace the temple, but you can't recruit *anyone*...

It's not so bad in Dom3 with sleeping/imprisoned pretenders, but I remember in Dom2 once losing my Oracle pretender on turn 2 to an independent assassin. That was a game-stopper!

All bad events are setbacks, but some really are much more vicious than others, especially in the very early game. Having to spend half of your first 8 turns just recovering from a random-event setback can put you unrecoverably far behind other players.

[Gandalf Parker]

But I thought the game was already setup so that those things didnt happen early. Or at least, didnt happen unless you had taken settings that specifically said "Im willing to take the chance"

[HoneyBadger]

Which is why I initially wrote this post, Gandalf.

I was trying to spread out my poor Mictlan Dom (2) and in the middle of it, lost the lab for my home provice. It happened before the 3rd year was over and I had a Luck of 0. It wasn't in this case a particularly enormous loss, I admit, but it could have been had I been using a different strategy, or playing an MP game-or even seriously endeavoring to play a game, rather than just testing theory.

I didn't ask for bad luck, I also didn't ask for good luck-please note. But it certainly was reason enough to post about it. I would appreciate it if other people could take the time to test this and see how limited catastrophic events are in the first 3 years of the game, just so that Gandalf and I could compare notes.

Thanks.

[SelfishGene]

The problem, in a nutshell, is starting with 1 province.

[HoneyBadger]

But I like starting with 1 province.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that at the moment the safety zone is set for something like 3 turns. So its not the want as much as the range of the safety that is in question.

And of course, starting with one province is a game option. I often like to start with 3-5 on large maps.

[thejeff]

Losing your lab sometime in the first 3 years isn't really that big a deal. It's a one turn delay on recruiting capital-only mages and researching/casting in the capital along with 500gp. Not a game breaker.

Losing your lab in the first few turns when you might not even have recruited a mage yet. That's a game breaker, especially with dormant/imprisoned pretender.
Same for early temple loss.

[Agrajag]

Have you tried using Random Events Are Rare?

[TwoBits]

Is there any "safety zone" at the start of a game? I don't think so.

Once my capitol got hit by vampires on the 2nd turn (before I had the chance to even think of attacking my first independant) of a small , random map MP game (and I had +1 luck to boot).

Wiped out my PD and income right from the get-go. I had to demand a restart, and justifiably, I think.

That's the kind of irritating (and major time wasting - we're talking days if you're playing PBEM, like we were) event that needs to be mitigated against.